Building the Business Through Bootstrapping
Many of you might have heard about the Series A Crunch that happened last year. It left a lot of startups scrambling for funding. …
Many of you might have heard about the Series A Crunch that happened last year. It left a lot of startups scrambling for funding. Those who were ahead of the curve received funding, those who were fortunate were acquired by larger companies looking for entrepreneurial talent, while others sadly ended up in the dead pool.
I spotted signs of the crunch happening very early on. I knew that getting another round of funding for my startup BizeeBee would be difficult. I cringed at the thought of of being acqui-hired and possibly having to shut down a product I had spent years and my own personal savings to build!
Fortunately, I had built BizeeBee to be resilient, knowing that we were operating in a space that would take time to grow. Hence, I started with the goal of it being a self-sustaining product and company. I had taken great pains to learn how to build a remote team, and make the product as simple as possible for customers to onboard themselves and use.
As it became clear that we wouldn’t receive another round of funding, I became nervous. We weren’t quite at break-even. I had talked to a few other startup founders, who I knew had successfully bootstrapped their way to profitability. With the remaining months of runway I had left, I sat down with what I had learned with other founders, and came up with a plan for how I would continue to run BizeeBee and bootstrap it!
If you’re interested in learning how you can control your company’s destiny like I did, or if you’re building a product or area located in an area where getting investment is challenging, then join me in the next iteration of Lean Product Development. I’ll be sharing bootstrapping strategies to help you build your product and business!
